Tools

Christina Aguilera is an Iowa waitress who shimmies and sings her way to stardom in a fading bump-and-grind nightclub on the Sunset Strip; Cher is the owner and top chanteuse, mending costumes when not jousting with the rich developer (Eric Dane of Grey's Anatomy) who wants both the club and Aguilera. This slick, brassy musical embraces chorus-line cliché, raiding everything from Gold Diggers of 1933 to Showgirls; even the dances feel cozily dated, as choreographers Denise Faye and Joey Pizzi borrow liberally from Bob Fosse. But the current burlesque revival is a throwback to ostensibly more innocent times, and writer-director Steven Antin finds something redemptive in each character (even bad girl Kristen Bell is rewarded with such meaty lines as "I will not be upstaged by a slut with mutant lungs!"). With Stanley Tucci and Alan Cumming.
ByAndrea Gronvall